With the overcrowded conditions of conventional golf courses, the expense of play and the time required to play a round of golf, a number of people have recognized the need for providing a compact form of golf course which is less expensive due to use of less land, allows multiple players to speed up the time and as a result of the two, reduces the cost to the golf player. A number of patents have issued on compact golf courses as a result. These patents include the following:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Inventor Issued ______________________________________ 3,129,943 McKee April 21, 1964 3,310,310 McKee March 21, 1967 3,464,703 Vallas September 2, 1969 3,685,832 Johnson August 22, 1972 3,904,209 Thomas September 9, 1975 3,999,764 Nitsche December 28, 1976 4,019,748 Healey April 26, 1977 4,063,738 Michalson December 20, 1977 4,129,300 Magnusoa December 12, 1978 4,192,510 Miller March 11, 1980 4,283,056 Miller August 11, 1981 ______________________________________
Each of these patents disclose golf courses requiring significantly less ground than a standard golf course and often to varying degrees appear to achieve the objective of faster play and reduced cost.
It would appear from the study of these patents, many of them go to great extent to simulate play on the golf course and many attempt to provide an atmosphere of isolation through the use of natural and artificial barriers between player tees providing a degree of simulation of play of a conventional golf course. While a number of these objectives have been attained at least partially, the compact golf course has not reached any significant degree of acceptance in the golf community as noted by their significant absence from the modern day golf scene. In a typical metropolitan area, one will find public and private full size golf courses, par three or reduced yardage golf courses and driving ranges but this inventor has yet to see a single operating compact golf course of the type disclosed in the above patents. Recognizing the continuing need for compact golf courses and after further study of the features of the several disclosures, this inventor finds that his basic concept provides features not present in any prior compact golf course designs and in fact provides a game of golf which is superior in a number of respects to the conventional golf game.